Yes, there is an -ology for that. And yes, we’re airing this episode -– with a ton of 2025 updates -– because it’s never felt more relevant. Dr. Robert Proctor is a Stanford professor of the History of Science and co-edited the book “Agnotology: The Making & Unmaking of Ignorance,” having coined the word 30 years ago. We chat about everything from tobacco marketing, to the sugar lobby, to racial injustice, horse vision, the psychology of the Flat Earther movement, which countries have the highest rates of climate denial, empathy, how to navigate difficult conversations and why it's critical to dismantle the systems of willful ignorance, starting locally.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Podbay, Podcast Addict, or wherever you get podcasts.

Dr. Robert Proctor’s book: "Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance"

His 2021 book: Science and the Production of Ignorance: When the Quest for Knowledge Is Thwarted.

Donations in Dr. Proctor’s name went to: SavingBlackLives.org and the Public Health Advocacy Institute

An additional donation went to The National Black Law Students Association

Books Dr. Proctor mentioned:

“Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science” by Martin Gardner (original debunker of flimflam)

“Science and the Production of Ignorance,” edited by Janet Kourany & Martin Carrier

“The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming” by David Wallace-Wells

“The Shock of the Anthropocene: Earth, History and Us” by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

“Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition” by Dr. Robert Proctor

“Merchants of Doubt” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. Buy the book here